Cassandra Burke Robertson, Case Western Reserve University
When presidents have tried to make big changes through executive orders, they have often hit a roadblock: A single federal judge, whether located in Seattle or Miami or anywhere in between, could stop these policies across the entire country.
But on June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court significantly limited this judicial power. In Trump v. CASA Inc., a 6-3 majority ruled that federal courts likely lack the authority to issue “universal injunctions” that block government policies nationwide. The ruling means that going forward federal judges can generally only block policies from being enforced against the specific plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, not against everyone in the country.
